"He gave us a chance to win the ballgame. He was as good tonight as he's been. I thought [Nate] Goodwin behind the plate was pretty good tonight, blocking balls. We were just too sloppy early in the ball game. So much of our game is predicated on two guys -the pitcher and the catcher. When you're facing a good arm tonight and he's on tonight because he's not walking us, you can lose those kinds of ball games."

On leaving two on-base in the eighth inning:

"They made some nice plays. They played with a lot of confidence defensively. That was a big time play [on Cal Towey's ball]. The play right after it was another nice play up the middle on [Wes] Mercurio's ball. They played like they were playing to win the game. I don't think we played any differently than that. But when you've got a guy on the mound who's pounding the zone like he was, and you give a team a lead, that is a big opportunity to win a ball game. They played, and they didn't back off of it. If I were coaching them I'd feel very proud of them because they had a chance to spit it up and they didn't. They bring in a pretty good one at the end, we get a chance, they make two big time plays, end of ball game."

On the high number of fly outs by Sam Houston's starter Caleb Smith

"Well, he's overmatching a lot of our guys. He's got a lot of late life on the fastball. Cal hit the ball well off of him into right-center, [Nathan] Orf hit the ball well; the hitters got their hits, they squared it up well. But he overmatched quite a few of our guys."

"A bunch of junk. I had a lot of command with my cutter. I found my breaking ball when I needed it, first and third there in the sixth inning. Later on, I kind of got in a groove, in the eighth and ninth and was really just throwing cutters for strikes and a couple of fastballs here or there to keep them off balance. Then I either buried a cutter late, or a breaking ball. That's what got the weak ground balls and not much contact."

On if he felt comfortable later on in the game:

"I think that's the longest outing I've had in my career at Baylor. I knew Sean [Spicer] was struggling a little bit, that wasn't what we usually see out of him. So I threw a couple of pitches early on in the bullpen, kind of what I'm used to. When I came in the game it was a normal situation for me. They just let me have the ball and it was easy. It was really nice to kind of get in a rhythm. We've got one of the best defenses you could ever have, so if I can get them ground balls, we can get outs and put zeroes up on the scoreboard."

"I think as a team we're always one big hit away. I feel like last year the baseball gods were on our side, and everything went our way. This year it's not like we're doing bad, but at the same time we're not doing great. We need to get timely hits - that's baseball. Runners in scoring position with two outs, you have to scratch them across. You're not always going to get a sac fly, and they're not going to be given to you. We just have to keep plugging away, the hits will fall. I think giving them free bases has been a big thing as well. I'd rather lose by a walk-off hit than hitting a guy, balking him over, or a passed ball. Those little things are frustrating. We're just going to keep plugging away and the hits will come."